New law criminalises disclosure of
information regarding ASIO actions

The ASIO Legislation Amendment Bill 2003 was rushed through 
Parliament during the final sitting week of the year. The 
legislation adds new, alarming secrecy provisions to earlier 
legislation giving ASIO broad powers to detain and question in 
secret anyone who might have information about a terrorist 
act.

Spokeperson for the Federation of Community Legal Centres, Peter 
Noble, explained that journalists, doctors, lawyers, friends and 
family members and even parliamentarians would all be prevented 
from speaking out about any knowledge they may have of ASIO's 
activities for a full two years after someone has been detained 
and questioned.

There is a five-year jail term attached to the new offences.

Given that ASIO is invariably involved in domestic "anti-
terrorism" measures, these offences will have the knock-on effect 
of insulating the domestic "War on Terror" from the public gaze.

"The public has a right to know about how our intelligence agency 
is using the broad ranging power it has been given", Mr Noble 
said.

Senator John Faulkner, Labor spokesperson on Special Minister of 
State issues and Public Administration and Accountability 
justified the ALP's vote for the Bill thus: "The fact is that 
ASIO, as they have gone about their important work, have 
discovered some loopholes in their new laws when questioning 
people about terrorism, especially when those people are foreign 
nationals", he said.

"The amendments are technical in nature." "It is plain common 
sense."

Senator Bob Brown of the Greens said of the ALP's cave-in: 
"Latham Labor has capitulated to John Howard at the first 
hurdle."

"The ALP and Government rejected Greens amendments that would 
have inserted a public interest test and protected journalists 
who disclosed information which did not threaten national 
security.

"Latham Labor has joined John Howard in this remarkable assault 
on fundamental rights." He called Labor's argument in Parliament 
that the legislation is merely "technical" as "fatuous".

The legislation also allows ASIO to discriminate against suspects 
who require an interpreter to answer questions by allowing for 
them to be questioned twice as long as English speaking suspects.